The National Air & Space Museum’s De Havilland Mosquito

The Smithsonian's Mosquito at the Paul E. Garber Facility, April 1992. | Source

The Smithsonian's Mosquito at the Paul E. Garber Facility, April 1998. | Source

The Smithsonian's Mosquito at the Paul E. Garber Facility, April 1998. | Source

The Smithsoinan's Mosquito at the Paul E. Garber Facility, April 1998. | Source

The Smithsonian's Mosquito at the Paul E. Garber Facility, April 1991. | Source

The Smithsonian’s Mosquito

The National Air & Space museum’s collection includes a De Havilland DH-98 B/TT Mark 35 Mosquito, serial number TH 998. The aircraft was built at the de Havilland factory in Hatfield. It was built as a bomber version. The Royal Air Force Air Ministry accepted this aircraft on August 24, 1945. It was sent to RAF Shawbury. On May 14, 1952 it was sent to Brooklands Aviation Co., Ltd. at Leicestershire for conversion to a TT Mark 35. After conversion it went to No. 3 Civilian Anti-Aircraft Cooperation Unit at RAF Exeter. There from September 30, 1952 to March 1962 it served as a target towing aircraft. On March 20, 1962 it was sent to RAF Dishforth for an overhaul and painting. The purpose for the overhaul and cleanup was to give it to the Smithsonian Institution. TH 998 was transported to the United States on August 17, 1962. The aircraft has been in storage at the Paul E. Garber Facility in Silver Hill, Maryland since then. The Smithsonian plans to eventually display the aircraft at the Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles.[i] Unfortunately plans to restore its Mosquito have been put on hold. The Air & Space Museum is going to focus its efforts on revitalizing their museum on the Washington Mall. The Mall project will begin in 2017 or 2018 and last at least until 2025.

[i] The Air and Space Museum’s web site (http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19640023000) last accessed March 19, 2016.

About the Mosquito

The wooden construction caused the Air Ministry to reject the Mosquito in 1938. The Air Ministry reversed its decision in 1940 for fear of a shortage of strategic metals. The prototype Mosquito made its first flight on November 25, 1940. The first Mosquitoes reached operation service on September 20, 1940.[i] The first Mosquitoes were photoreconnaissance aircraft. The Mosquito was a true multirole aircraft. They served as bombers, day and night fighters, and photoreconnaissance. They served well in each of these roles.

A Mosquito bombing the Gestapo headquarters in the Shellhus, Copenhagen, Denmark in March 1945. | Source

A Mosquito attacking a German convoy April 5, 1945. | Source

The Mosquito in Combat

The first Mosquito combat mission was on September 20, 1941 when a Mosquito flew a reconnaissance flight over France. Four Mosquito bombers attacked Gestapo headquarters in Oslo, Norway on September 25, 1942. The mission was timed to coincide with a rally for German sympathizers. An FW 190 shot down one of the bombers. Four bombs struck the building and all failed to explode.[i] On the night of May 28/29, 1942 a Mosquito was credited with a “probable” over Great Britain.[ii] The Mosquito’s first night fighter “kills” occurred on the night of June 24/25, 1942. Wing Commander Irving Stanley Smith shot down 2 Dornier Do 217s.[iii]

January 30, 1943 – RAF Bomber Command tasked Mosquitoes to attack Berlin twice. The attacks were to coincide with a speech by Hermann Göring in the morning and a speech by Joseph Goebbels in the afternoon. The bombing raids disrupted both speeches. Ground fire shot down a Mosquito on the second mission. Squadron Leader Darling and Flying Officer Wright were killed.[iv] These were the first daylight attacks against Berlin.

May 16/17, 1943 - Focke-Wulf FW 190A-4/U-8s attacked England’s south coast. Mosquitoes shot down 4 of the FW 190s.[v] This was the same night of the famed “Dam Buster” raids. Also on this night 9 Mosquitoes attacked 4 German cities, including Berlin, all returned safely. [vi]

From the summer of 1943 the Mosquitoes flew night intruder missions. In these missions the Mosquitoes would patrol areas around known Luftwaffe airfields and attack the German night fighters as they were taking off or landing. The Luftwaffe tried to counter this threat by having their Me-110s patrol over German airfields. Me-110s only shot down 4 Mosquitoes in 1943.[vii]

January 21/22, 1944 – An RAF Mosquito shot down a Ju 88 flown by Prinz Heinrich zu Sayn-Wittgenstein after Wittgenstein made his 83rd kill. Wittgenstein was killed when his parachute failed to open. That night Manfred Meurer was killed when the bomber he shot down, his 65th kill, fell onto his He 219.[viii] RAF Bomber Command lost 58 bombers that night.[ix]

Claims the He-219 shot down 6 Mosquitoes during their first 10 days of operations[x] are inaccurate. Bomber Command didn’t lose any Mosquitoes during this period.[xi] In the conclusive Mosquito vs. He 219 combats the Mosquito was almost always the victor.

In December 1944 the Luftwaffe night fighters shot down 66 bombers for the loss of 114 night fighters. Mosquitoes caused many of the night fighter losses.[xii] Bomber Command lost 8 Mosquitoes, 3 of them intruders. [xiii]

Over Great Britain Mosquitoes accounted for over 1,000 Luftwaffe aircraft, 471 of them were the pilotless V-1s. The Mosquito’s speed made it difficult for the German fighters to catch Mosquito bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. On July 25, 1944 Flight Lieutenant A. E. Wall and Pilot Officer A. S. Lobban encountered a fighter they couldn’t outrun. A Messerschmitt Me 262 was attempting to shoot them down. By turning his Mosquito Wall survived 5 firing passes by the jet fighter. Wall escaped into cloud cover. Wall’s report proved the Me 262 was being used operationally.[xiv] A Mosquito pilot was also the first to report the Me 262 was being used at night. The RAF summarily dismissed the account.[xv] The Luftwaffe did use day fighter and night fighter versions of the Me 262 at night.

March 16, 1945 – Feldwebel Rolf Glogner, flying an Me 163 Komet rocket fighter, intercepted a Mosquito over Leipzig. One of Glogner’s 30mm shells found its mark and severely damaged the Mosquito. Glogner believed he shot down the Mosquito. Pilot Officer R. M. Hays managed to fly his damaged Mosquito to France where he made a forced landing.[xvi]

The last attacks by RAF Bomber Command was against Kiel on the night of 2/3 May, 1945. The attacks involved 231 aircraft, 142 of them Mosquitoes. One Mosquito was lost and its crew, Flying Officer R. Catterall, and Flight Sergeant D. J. Beadle were killed. Bomber Command lost 2 Halifaxes in these raids.

Bomber Command lost 310 Mosquitoes during the war. These include 260 lost to enemy action and 50 lost in accidents.[xvii] Bomber Command Mosquitoes flew 39,750 sorties and had a lower loss percentage than any Bomber Command aircraft that flew over 1,000 sorties. [xviii]

The USAAF also flew Mosquitoes. These American Mosquitoes flew a variety of missions. These Mosquitoes were sometimes the target of American fighters. The 8th Air Force 25th Group flew Mosquitoes. They painted their tail surfaces bright red so they wouldn’t be mistaken for Luftwaffe aircraft. This didn’t always work. In one tragic incident in March, 1945 a Mosquito with a P-51 escort was on a reconnaissance mission. Some P-47s of the 9th Air Force 36th Fighter Group mistook the Mosquito, piloted by Lt. Stubblefield and with Lt. Richmond as navigator, for a German plane. Lt. Stubblefield showed his aircraft markings to the P-47s. The lead P-47 shot down the Mosquito. The P-51s only saw one parachute. The P-51s proceeded to fly onto the tails of the P-47s. The P-51 leader, Lt. William Barsky followed a P-47 back to its base and reported the “friendly fire” shoot down to Lt. Col. Slayden, the 36th Fighter Group commander.[xix]

Comments

No HTML is allowed in comments, but URLs will be hyperlinked. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites.

sending

AUTHOR

Robert Sacchi

2 years ago

Thank you. The Mosquito was a remarkable aircraft. It wasn't just that it was used in so many roles but that it did all of them well. The Commemorative Air Force does a great job of keeping vintage warbirds flying.

Peggy Woods

2 years agofrom Houston, Texas

It was definitely interesting reading about the Mosquito airplane. A 5% loss rate had to be considered very good back then. The Commemorative Air Force is flying old WWII airplanes this weekend in our part of Houston. One can hear those old motors long before spotting the planes in the sky.

AUTHOR

Robert Sacchi

2 years ago

Yes, it was a true multirole aircraft. Thank you for reading and commenting.

Lawrence Hebb

2 years agofrom Hamilton, New Zealand

Robert

The 'Mossie' is one of my favorites! Over 7,000 built and used in various roles, most saw combat but only about 400 lost, that's a loss rate of just over 5%

The main role they had was photo recce but also 'pathfinder' in going ahead of the main bomber formations to pinpoint targets with flares.

Churchill had ordered that Bomber command were to 'take every precaution not to take French lives' so that meant planes going in before the main Bombing formations to act as target selectors and warning the locals!

Mosquitoes were perfect for the role because they were as good flying at less than a hundred feet as they were at 25,000 feet!

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)

Google AdSense Host API

This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Facebook Login

You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Maven

This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)

We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.

Conversion Tracking Pixels

We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.

Statistics

Author Google Analytics

This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)

Comscore

ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)

Amazon Tracking Pixel

Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)